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I play Orks and my friend recently acquired a force of Grey Knights (not sure which models) which I expect him to use the next time we play. I have no experience against GK so I was hoping you guys could help me out a little with what to expect and what would work well against him?

My initial ideas are KMK Mek Guns, SAG Big Mek and of course Klaws everywhere and I usually play a Speed Freak style army with Battlewagon's, Trukks, a unit of Bikers and lone Deffkoptas with a MAWB Warlord. I feel like Mega Nobz won't be ideal with all the force weapons I expect to see and they are usually a mainstay of my lists. Would Boys provide a good combat anvil for my army or should I just try to outshoot him?

My personal experience is that Grey Knights struggle against Orks. They don't fair well aginst horde forces, and all those AP3 combat weapons are largely wasted.

Meganobz actually do alright against Grey Knights, most of their weapons are AP3, it's the odd Hammer that you need to watch out for. And Meganobz are a bully unit, if their units have Force cast, don't charge them! Your trukks and wagons should give you the speed to choose who charges what.

Dreadnights are a pain as always. KMK may help here, or bury them in Boyz. Don't throw the Meganobz in here.

GK are a low model count army, while Orks are a high model count army. Drown him in armor saves, he will fail enough rolls to make it a one-sided battle in your favor. Don't be afraid to tarpit his heavy hitters, just to block them from completing objectives. Spam long range, high strength shooting. Take a lot of vehicles. GK are weak versus Flyers. Use all your psychic dice to block that one power he seems to be relying on to heavily, ignore the rest.

So says a long time GK player.

SJ

You're instincts are correct. A couple or three full mobs backed up by kmk's and a sag will serve you well. Remember that dreadknights are characters so a mek in each mob at a minimum will help quite a bit along with obligatory painboy.. but that's pretty standard kit.

GK tend to focus their attack to one area to overwhelm then move on. Keep this in mind. I can tell you this is probably the key factor. If GK can concentrate their forces they can wreck orks before they know what hit them. If you can goad him into spreading out and deep striking his terminators your well on your way to a victory. Bikes are poor in this match, manz it depends. If he's running upward of 3 knights they will be too although a massive unit could still do work.

Great advice so far thanks guys. Good to know that Dreadknights are characters (seems odd to me!), I usually play CSM so I'm quite comfortable with manipulating challenges. If GK have a lot of AP3 weapons I think I'll skip eavy armour completely and stick with high numbers of plain boyz, probably with Shootas instead of slugga/choppas. Sounds like a couple of Blitzabommers might work well if they struggle with anti-flyer.

I don't have much in the way of high strength long range shooting except for certain blasts and I'm guessing Lobbas won't be worthwhile as well as any similar high AP small blasts (due to small numbers of models in each unit and good saves) but will Lootas work well?

In my mind I'm picturing facing an entire army of 2+ saves on his infantry, is that correct? Do they have much in the way of fast attack choices?

Be Wary of cleansing flame if you run horde. if he runs just one full squad with purifiers combat squaded if he does it right that' 2 cleansing flames per unit. meand 4d6 str 5 AP 4 hits ignoring cover, then on top of that each combat squad will have 2 flammers so if you decide to charge them that's 2d3 str 6 ap 4 flammer hits. And even on top of that they are 2 attacks base.

My experience with fighting GK as Orks is that, yeah, I wish I had more numbers. Do not play small point games, because your edge goes bye bye.

Purifiers are bad news bears, but don't let that take your eye off of the interceptors. If you see that they are using the teleporting GKs, then it's worth it to spend the points on some kind of squad for bubblewrap (all things being relative, I'd prefer gretchin).

Also, there's something to be said for splitting up your squads a bit. GKs have a lot of shots with all their storm bolters, but not as many squads, meaning that they don't get to spread their fire as much as you can spread your units, just DO NOT FORGET to have a power klaw in those meaty little 12-15 boyz squads. Some of those squads are sure to die, and if you didn't spend for enough klaws, they'll prioritize the groups that do have the klaws in them, and then you're without (arguably) the most consistent killer of marine armor in your army.

I would try to tarpit dreadknights with a full squad of boyz and PK BP nob. Your shooting will be shrugged off regardless if shootas or sluggas. He will kill 5-6 boyz per turn, but you should be able to whittle him down in 2-3 turns. Pray he forgets to challenge (new GK player) and your life will be much easier. Don't let DKs anywhere near your warboss!

GKs want to be in cc, but they can also out shoot you as you make your way across the board. Close the gap asap and get n to combat turn 2 or his stormbolters, psycannons and flamers will toast your boyz and open topped vehicles.

Consider letting him have first turn. He has short range firepower, so he will be tempted to move towards you and even open himself to a first turn charge (bikes). If he moves the DKs out ahead, focus them down; you can flood them with wounds.

Any of his units silly enough to teleport in next to you; drown them with boyz. He ideally wants 2 rounds of shooting before the charges go off and he should aim to get all his units into combat at the same time. If he strolls up and lets you deal with him piecemeal, you should be golden.

Placement is very important as he has lost of strong flamers, some of which are torrent and cleansing flame which strikes every squad in 9' range. Your game is literally decided 1-st turn. If you place correctly and he can't find a weak spot to do maximum damage, you'll eventually drown him in bodies or win via maelstorm points. If he does, you can only hope for maelstorm points.

dominuschao wrote:
You're instincts are correct. A couple or three full mobs backed up by kmk's and a sag will serve you well. Remember that dreadknights are characters so a mek in each mob at a minimum will help quite a bit along with obligatory painboy.. but that's pretty standard kit.

DKs being characters is actually a bad thing for mobs with PKs. It means he can challenge out your PK and either make it unable to fight OR kill it before it swings. And the DK doesn't need to activate a force weapon to ID him.

Then you've only got Str3 boyz to try and force saves on a T6 2+ armor MC. You'll need 72 str3-4 attacks to cause a single wound to a DK. Sure, you'll tarpit him for a couple turns(as long as you don't run away)

 Grey Templar wrote:

dominuschao wrote:
You're instincts are correct. A couple or three full mobs backed up by kmk's and a sag will serve you well. Remember that dreadknights are characters so a mek in each mob at a minimum will help quite a bit along with obligatory painboy.. but that's pretty standard kit.

DKs being characters is actually a bad thing for mobs with PKs. It means he can challenge out your PK and either make it unable to fight OR kill it before it swings. And the DK doesn't need to activate a force weapon to ID him.

Then you've only got Str3 boyz to try and force saves on a T6 2+ armor MC. You'll need 72 str3-4 attacks to cause a single wound to a DK. Sure, you'll tarpit him for a couple turns(as long as you don't run away)

Thats where the lowly Mek comes in
This is the fella to accept the challenge. If the Dreadnight is in combat by itself (more than likely) then all the other members of the unit can beat on it while he's fighting the Mek.

xlDuke wrote:
In my mind I'm picturing facing an entire army of 2+ saves on his infantry, is that correct? Do they have much in the way of fast attack choices?

You just summed up my GK collection. Terminators and Interceptors are where it's at. Just beware the Incinerator. Str6 Ap4 with soulblaze on it is not kind to orks. When I play orks it basically comes down to a race between my incinerators and his body count. I try to use the mobile flaming parts of my force to burn out a unit a turn - more than one unit if they're all nice and packed together. The terminators are flexible and fill the holes as they appear.

Honestly though - the best answer to 2+ armor is an ork unit's customary forty three thousand attacks on the charge. If you can get a klaw in there with someone else to take the challenges, that's just gravy.

I would probably add in a squad or two of traktor kannons in case your opponent brings a DK or two. Traktors are very good counters to Dk's and FMC's in general. Just be sure you have a blob of boyz that has at least one PK in it nearby so you can charge in as soon as the DK gets downed.

Dread knights are not FMCs.

Woops, have only skim read their new dex didn't realize their teleporter packs don't make them fmc's anymore. In that case DITTO to what everybody else has said!

Meganobs could work really well with having a 2+ save. Gk don't have any ap 2 that hits at initiative except draigo (and maybe one other unit). I'd take the armour saves from instant death weapons and they would be ws4 all around unless your with Paladins. If there is a hammer in a group of terminators by the manz Id take that fight. You have 2 wounds and a 2+ save so basically no overwatch deaths. They do some magic GK force or whatever and they hit on4+ which is usually where they can start struggle. Then if there is a hammer in there you get to hit all of your pk's on them which will crush 2+ saves like nothing and maybe lose one or two Manz in the process. Idk just don't charge a baby carrier or draigo.

Ya triple characters per mob at a minimum is a must. I've played both sides of this match. Mobs are excellent regardless but with multiple ablative characters they become incredibly hard to deal with. 120 s4 attacks will sort even dreadknights out but what you want is to keep the klaws swinging as long as possible.. it should only take 1-2 turns though usually. Then the boyz are free to cause trouble again.

Honestly I haven't been impressed with hvy incinerators here. If models are spread properly the GK player is basically forced to sacrifice the knight in return for roasting 3-4 boyz. Not a good exchange. Similar for purifiers. I've tried them every which way and they are usually underwhelming. However. Where both shine is against higher value stuff like bikers. These will evaporate without recourse so leave them home.

It's true manz don't have much to fear at range from GK but they are a combat army first, especially the dreadknights. One of these will go through 5 manz without breaking a sweat.

Lastly one unit I've been impressed with is flash gitz. Very killy, resilient to moral and fairly fighty ta boot. For 10 pts more you can guarantee ap1 on one gun (grogg iirc). Load 5-7 of these in a BW and let rip. One turn of ap2 will dust almost any GK unit. Of course kmk's do well here too but they are immobile and serve different purpose in a TAC list. Functional overlap..

Anyway good luck

dominuschao wrote:
Lastly one unit I've been impressed with is flash gitz. Very killy, resilient to moral and fairly fighty ta boot. For 10 pts more you can guarantee ap1 on one gun (grogg iirc). Load 5-7 of these in a BW and let rip. One turn of ap2 will dust almost any GK unit. Of course kmk's do well here too but they are immobile and serve different purpose in a TAC list. Functional overlap..

Their Ap is D6, no way to improve it in this edition.

 flaming tadpole wrote:
Woops, have only skim read their new dex didn't realize their teleporter packs don't make them fmc's anymore. In that case DITTO to what everybody else has said!

It never made them FMCs.